During the boom years, when both the DS and Wii were killing it, Nintendo used to make pretty good…
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It spends two minutes telling you over and over THIS IS A BRAND NEW SYSTEM, YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BUY IT. The only way it could be any more blunt is if Reggie Fils-Aime was standing in an alley holding up signs saying BRAND NEW SYSTEM, NOT A WII, TOTALLY BUY IT.

It's the kind of clarity the Wii U needed at launch; for too long, regular consumers have clearly been confused as to what the console actually was, unaware it was a brand new machine.

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It's also the kind of clarity Nintendo badly needs this holiday season. Sony and Microsoft have made it very clear that the PS4 and Xbox One are their new systems, and have been sitting in the limelight (and the sales charts) as a result.

Will it work, though? Probably not. I can't see anything helping the Wii U at this point. The Wii's primary audience was a demographic that saw the system as a fad and has since moved on to the latest hot new thing. No amount of advertising is going to bring them back from their smart TVs and iPads and toy drones and whatever else is cooler than Nintendo is at the moment.